Rio Wolta – The Wonder Days of Skiing…
The expression “Belle Epoque” isn’t usually applied to Switzerland. And it certainly isn’t applied to the 1970s. However, that is exactly what Rio Wolta has done with his new album, his third. “Belle Epoque” is an album dedicated to the rosy days of the 1970s when not a single dark cloud seemed to spoil the optimism with which the Swiss faced their future.
Alles fahrt Ski – Everyone Goes Skiing – was a massive local hit in the 1950s. It took another twenty years before the slogan became true. In the 1970s, truly everyone in Switzerland was slaloming down the slopes on a regular basis. The multi-instrumentalist, song writer and singer Rio Wolta has turned the memory of those days into a lovingly crafted metaphor for a state of mind that was part blissful ignorance, and part an ignorant refusal to face up to the realities of a changing world.
Born in 1988, Zurich-based Rio Wolta grew up in the Alps, studied history in Zurich and Berlin, and works with music, film, theatre and fine arts, often combining the lot. On “Belle Epoque”, with a little help from friends like The Legendary Lightness’s Daniel Hobi, he played most of the (mostly) organic instruments himself. “Belle Epoque” was released on 29 Januay 2021 on Sihlfeld Produktionen/Irascible.
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